


Still the World Keeps Turning

by Quandtuniverse



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Blanket Permission, Character Study, Fear, Gen, PTSD, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Trauma, emotional angst, technically an AU but this snippet is a little too short to really matter, vague allusions to Classic Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27892420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quandtuniverse/pseuds/Quandtuniverse
Summary: The Doctor has faced her greatest fear, again.(Reflection on the Doctor's feelings at the end of Timeless Children.)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Still the World Keeps Turning

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the intro to a longer fic involving Thirteen reuniting w/ the Fam post-Timeless Children (hence the AU thing in the tags, bc she doesn't get captured by the Judoon). 
> 
> But I couldn't gather the strength to write it. It was May, and I was very sad and very tired, and I am still very sad and very tired, and now with the special coming up I feel like my premise got tossed out the window anyway.
> 
> But I liked this bit too much to let it sit in the trunk forever, so I'm posting it. Hope you like it.

She sees the world afire, again.

What distant dread lays buried under countless centuries claws its way back up to reclaim its space inside her hearts, and she lets it. The fire is here, now, it’s always been here, it’s just been waiting.

Patiently.

Funny how one can get used to fear. Putting up defenses, preparing for the worst—and the worst keeps coming, and every time it does, it feels as though a familiar face has come to visit, and here you sit and talk over tea and biscuits with your enemy.

That's time travel for you: real time travel. The kind that keeps dragging you back to the past whether you want to be there or not.

Her fingers brush over the dials on the console, automatically setting coordinates she knows by heart; she doesn't let herself time to breathe, because time to breathe means time for tears, and time for tears means time to remember, and there's nothing to be gained there, not when the only memory is fire, and heartache, and loss like the coldest vacuum of space— 

The TARDIS vibrates, pulses, alive, the buzz underneath her fingertips reaches through her touch and climbs up her muscles and sinews and bones, resonates in her chest, her neck, her jaw; it drones in her head like the only certainty of the universe, and they fly, leaving that world behind, again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> And with thanks to Taka for encouraging me to post it.


End file.
